Vibrant and Seductive Seville, Easy on the Wallet

I watched the dancer, Yasaray Rodrίguez, seated on stage perfectly upright and immaculately dressed, listening to the accompanying guitar player. A vocalist began to cry out a song of pain or lost love — folk melodies in harsh quarter-tones, like a muezzin issuing a call to prayer at a mosque.

The emotion in Ms. Rodrίguez’s face become more and more intense, the angst greater and greater, until it seemed to lift her off her chair. Finally, she began to dance, a series of increasingly complex palos, movements that involved sharp claps and stomps, intricate hand movements and acrobatic turns and seemed to play off the guitar.

Watching flamenco for the first time in the performance hall at the Casa de la Guitarra in Seville was both exhausting and exhilarating. The volume and intensity led a child in the front row to clasp his hands tightly over his ears and close his eyes — I might have done the same had I not been so enthralled.

That show (17 euros, about $19) capped off just another day in Seville, the capital of the Andalusia region, where familiar rituals are anything but ordinary and demonstrate Sevillians’ intense lust for life.

An afternoon in Seville might include strolling down its sunbaked streets and alleyways, walking among bougainvillea and admiring its intricate, Moorish-inspired mudéjar architecture, or taking in an impromptu street show in one of its beautiful plazas. And it will definitely involve tapas or montaditos — small bites and sandwiches consumed throughout the day, usually with an inexpensive glass of wine or beer.

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Flamenco at Casa de la Guitarra.CreditDaniel Rodrigues for The New York Times

I spent several such enjoyable days in Seville, taking in the city’s rich history, consuming its wonderful food and never once worrying about putting stress on my bank account.

If there’s a city in Europe with better weather than Seville, I’d like to visit it. Its Mediterranean climate means hot, dry summers and rainy winters. Even in the dead of December and January, average high temperatures rarely dip below 60 degrees. I stayed with my friend Claudia, a native, and she credits the climate for the dynamic buzz of the city and its general aura of happiness.

“It makes you feel different. Normally we are always out, in the streets,” she said. “Every day you can pick up the phone and say, ‘Want a beer?’ And someone will want a beer with you, outside. It’s not that we’re always partying, or we’re lazy — we’re not — but every free moment, we have fun.”

It was tough to argue with that sentiment when I arrived on a sunny afternoon, driving with Claudia down Paseo de Palmeras and watching the tall, gently swaying palm trees pass us on either side.

We continued on through Maria Luisa Park, the primary site of the Ibero-American Exposition of 1929. The most famous of the structures created for that event may be the Plaza de España. The extremely lavish semicircular structure curves around a large open plaza and a series of canals and fountains. Murals constructed from brightly colored ceramic tiles, one for each province of Spain, line the plaza. When Claudia and I visited, the plaza was abuzz with activity from tourists and vendors hawking toys and soliciting boat rides in the canal. A walk through the adjacent gardens, lush and peaceful, is also recommended.

Not everyone will be lucky enough to have a friend to stay with, of course. The Cool Sevilla Hotel, with a good central location and solid online reviews, has superior double rooms from 56 euros for select dates at the end of June. Those looking to save further can check out options on Airbnb, where private rooms go for less than $30 per night and entire apartments from around $50.

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The Seville Cathedral, the largest Gothic building in Europe.CreditDaniel Rodrigues for The New York Times

Holy Week, the week leading up to Easter, is particularly important in Seville — it happened to be when I arrived, and while it made typical tourist activities somewhat difficult (many businesses are closed, and just crossing from one end of the city to another becomes outright impossible during certain times of day), I don’t regret the decision at all. The various pasos, or processions, by the cofradías (religious brotherhoods) passing late into the night offered a fascinating glimpse into the traditions that are centuries old.

Claudia was perusing a small booklet that looked like a bus schedule — actually a timeline of the dozens of processions and their locations during Holy Week. (If you can’t locate one of the free booklets, you can do what I did and look online. You can even download a phone app for iPhone and Android called iLlamador, which has route maps.)

We walked briskly on narrow, stone streets that squeaked with dried wax from previous processions, remnants of the candles carried by the nazarenos in their pointy hooded robes (outfits that may shock American visitors, as they closely resemble those associated with the Ku Klux Klan). After hitting a blockade of people going down one street and unable to go farther, we doubled back and wound through a back alley to approach the parade from a different locale.

The centerpiece of each procession is a large float — intricately carved, beautifully decorated, about the size of a small automobile — that depicts a scene from the gospels. The floats are also extremely heavy, and are carried by dozens of men, called costaleros, who rotate in and out during the course of the day.

The processions all differ in character, some more joyous, some more solemn. A particularly beautiful one passed through the Plaza Cristo de Burgos one night, punctuated by a plaintive, piercing saeta, or unaccompanied song, performed by a singer from a nearby balcony.

After a night of procession-watching, packed together with thousands of other people, you work up an appetite. After one paso, well after midnight, we headed to Bodeguita Fabiola, a small restaurant where the alcohol and conversation spilled out the door and lit up the dark street. A savory portion of tortilla española (2.50 euros), a sort of fluffy egg-and-potato frittata, was perfect with a slathering of salmorejo, a creamy, tomato-based purée. A plate of very sharp, almost spicy, aged sheep’s milk cheese was another winner (5.50 euros). A piece of that cheese atop a small montadito of jamón ibérico, Iberian ham sliced directly from a whole pig’s leg atop the counter, is a perfect late-night sandwich.

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Siesta in the Plaza de España.CreditDaniel Rodrigues for The New York Times

Suffice it to say that most of my days were broken up by five or six small, wonderful meals — acorn-fed ham, pungent cheeses, perfectly briny olives — and a caña (a small glass, less than half a liter) of beer. One morning I took in a late brunch at the Mercado Lonja del Barranco, a modern food court overlooking the Guadalquivir River, and enjoyed a powerfully saline, jet-black arroz negro (8 euros), made with cuttlefish and squid ink, from the arrocería stall. Alongside a 2-euro glass of wine from Albero y Vino, it was fuel enough to propel me across the river to the Triana neighborhood, passing by the Castillo de San Jorge, a former headquarters for the Spanish Inquisition. A couple of hours later, I found myself back on the other side of the river, wandering into the Orfeo Café Bar for a pringá montadito that resembled a pulled pork sandwich (2.50 euros) and a caña of local favorite Cruzcampo beer (1.50 euros).

Another day, I went to Café Bar Las Teresas with Claudia and her father, another lifelong Sevillian, where we shared slices of fat-specked pork sausage, a plate of ham and sheep’s milk cheese, a pork-and-anchovy sandwich and three beers for a total of 15 euros.

After checking out the gorgeous Hospital de los Venerables, a former priests’ residence that dates to the 17th century (admission, 8 euros) and the surrounding neighborhood, what was once the Jewish quarter in medieval Seville, we found ourselves feeling peckish again. We went to another classic tapas bar, Casa Roman, and shared plates of bacalao frito (fried cod, 2.80 euros) and fresh tomatoes (4.80 euros).

While I wish I could say I spent all my time in Seville eating and navigating around Holy Week processions, there were simply too many other things to do. The Alcázar of Seville is necessary viewing for all visitors — a monumental palace built in the 10th century for a Muslim governor and still in use by the Spanish royal family. The Hall of Ambassadors is a particularly stunning room, and the palace’s accompanying gardens, fragrant with orange trees and dotted with fountains, are as beautiful as any I’ve seen. Tickets are 9.50 euros and free for children under 17. They can be bought in advance on the website — though expect to wait a good 20 to 30 minutes in line regardless.

The Alcázar, along with the Archivo de Indias (Seville had a monopoly on trade with the West Indies for over 200 years) and the awe-inspiring Seville Cathedral, make up the historical heart of the city. The cathedral, the largest Gothic building in Europe and one of the largest churches in the world, is worth at least a quick visit no matter how many European cathedrals you’ve visited (it has the tomb of Christopher Columbus, among other things).

Admission is 9 euros, but I highly recommend investing in the rooftop tour — for a mere 3 euros more, you get access to the inner workings of the structure and are allowed to climb up through its towers and along its gables. The views of the city are excellent. The hour-plus tour is slightly on the long side but it was worth it, though I don’t recommend it if you’re claustrophobic or afraid of heights.

“We don’t need to invent anything new,” Claudia told me when I first arrived in Seville. At that moment, I wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but by the time I left, I understood. Seville can exist in what seems like a self-contained world because it wants for very little — many of the people I encountered in Seville had lived there most of their lives. With great weather, centuries of history, art, inexpensive wine and excellent food, who would want to leave?

Correction:June 8, 2017

An earlier version of this article misstated the seafood used in bacalao frito. It is cod, not cuttlefish.